


Alive, Alight

by Commander_Freddy



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon Compliant, Developing Relationship, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, Love Confessions, M/M, Making Out, No Sex, Post A+ Support, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Relationship Discussions, Relationship Negotiation, Sex Talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 07:21:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20578670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Commander_Freddy/pseuds/Commander_Freddy
Summary: Hubert von Vestra was never one for doing things simply because he wanted to. Indeed, his own desires rarely factor into his decision-making process at all. But he'd gone and bought Ferdinand that tea solely because he wanted to, and now he's come to realise that there are quite a few things he wants, actually. Things he has no experience in, that run as deep and confusing as the heavens above.





	Alive, Alight

Hubert could not identify the coffee Ferdinand had bought him. Not from the bag of roasted beans so gently handed to him, as if it contained a burden far more precious than an imported treat, not from the aroma of the percolator, and not even from the taste when at last he brought the gift to his lips. Deep – bitter on a scale as yet unprecedented. It tugged at the insides of his cheeks with an intensity that almost spoke of citrus and drew from him a sigh of satisfaction that seemed to emerge from the very depths of his stomach.

“This truly is exquisite,” he said.

His voice seemed to lose itself in the strong scent and steam, but Ferdinand didn’t seem to mind. Indeed, he seemed to be enjoying himself rather a lot, if the wide smile that danced along the rim of his teacup was any indication.

“I made sure to get the merchant’s card, if you’d like to become a regular customer,” said Ferdinand, slipping a calling card along the overly-embroidered tablecloth. “Though, to be honest, at the time I picked it up in case my taste proved so awful that you felt the need to avoid his company in the future.”

Hubert laughed, warm and low, and reached for the card. Some instinct warned him to slow, however, and he found himself waiting, a tense patience, as Ferdinand’s hand left the card. An odd moment, even to Hubert, and he found himself eager to cover it with conversation.

“You needn’t have worried about that,” he said, flipping the card between his fingers. “I think you’ve found my new favourite.”

“Oh!” said Ferdinand. He seemed genuinely startled, with that eternal earnestness he wore so well. “I… I’m glad! It’s only fair, after all, since you went to the trouble of getting that Southern tea I adore so much.”

Hubert hummed, only to realise that he was smiling, and had been smiling for quite some time. That seemed to happen quite often around Ferdinand nowadays. Despite everything, the war and the weight of revolution on their shoulders, the incredible stress they and Edelgard mounted on each other every single day, Ferdinand always brightened his mood. He didn’t even appear to be doing anything deliberately, he just… made Hubert happy. Everything, his eagerness, his openness, his unwavering conviction in seemingly everything. It was more than refreshing in the wake of the misery that had stained his life for so long.

He couldn’t help but wonder what his younger self would have thought, had he known that Ferdinand von Aegir of all damned people would prove such a comforting presence in the future. Make some needlessly dramatic speech about the man’s many failings, no doubt. Hubert closed his eyes, let the twin scents of coffee and tea wash over him for a moment. There really was nothing like a tea break with Ferdinand at the end of a long hard day.

“I wish we had gotten along better when we were younger,” he announced, cutting through the quiet.

“Oh?” replied Ferdinand with a little smile. A single long finger ran along the rip of his teacup, while his other hand cradled his chin. “Was I so annoying that it bothers you even now?”

“Yes,” said Hubert, garnering a chuckle from his tea partner. “But, also… I feel things may have been easier, had I had someone who…” He trailed off, thinking. “I don’t mean to imply that Lady Edelgard is not my friend, but she is above me. Impossibly so.”

“As far above you as she is above me?” asked Ferdinand with a smile.

“Perhaps exactly that far,” replied Hubert. “That would, after all, make us equals. And an equal was something I sorely missed in our school days.” 

“And here I was thinking you’d had it easier than the rest of us, being the eldest.” 

“Did you really think that?” The idea hadn’t even occurred to Hubert. Certainly, he didn’t envy the distinctly teenage troubles of his classmates, but it wasn’t as if he had any real advantage over any of them. Sure he was physically larger, but he’d never been strong, or even a fighter at all. His skill at magic had been impressive, but with some of the cohort being alumni of the Faerghus’s School of Magic, he was no particular standout there, either.

“Well… yes,” said Ferdinand. “Though, maybe I was the only one to think so. You just seemed so… competent. Not only in your service to Edelgard – which was infuriatingly flawless, by the way-” Hubert lifted his cup to hide his returning smile “-but just in your understanding of yourself. You seemed to know exactly who you were. I have to admit, I was rather jealous of that certainty.”

“Really?” asked Hubert. “I’m quite surprised. A firm identity is not something I would have attributed to myself, back when I was still a student.”

Ferdinand’s eyebrows lifted. The gesture opened up his eyes, letting the last sunlight of the day strike his golden brown eyes, illuminating the depth of his irises. Hubert couldn’t shake a sudden need to grab Ferdinand by the chin, pull him close and study those bright eyes until the sun slipped away. But he hadn’t gotten this far in life without being able to swallow his urges, so he resigned himself to closing his eyes and elaborating.

“If anything, my dedication to Lady Edelgard and my… deliberately disconcerting persona was me attempting to find some sense of self. It’s true I felt confident in my role as her retainer, but… I hadn’t really considered who I was outside that,” said Hubert.

“I must confess, that sounds quite similar to my own predicaments as a student,” Ferdinand replied. His smile was gone, and while it was only fitting, considering the conversation, Hubert missed it with a thoroughly disconcerting urgency. “Conflating purpose with identity seems to be a rather easy trap to fall into when one is born into nobility. But, after all, isn’t that what we’re fighting for? To set nobility as a role to adopt, not a burden to place on the shoulders of children?”

“Quite,” said Hubert, raising his cup in salute.

His stomach danced as Ferdinand’s grin returned. The coffee somehow tasted even better now, as strong as the sting of sea winds on a summer’s day.

“So,” Ferdinand continued, “I don’t know if us being friends earlier would have been all that good for you, considering how lost I was.”

Hubert stared into his coffee.

“You’re right. The same has to go for myself. The Hubert I was five years ago… he was of little help to anyone.”

It was more difficult than it had been before, to lift his gaze and meet Ferdinand’s, what with the strange energy that had suddenly filled the air. As to what was going on behind those warm brown eyes, though, Hubert had no idea. He was thinking, no doubt. The Empress’ right hand… was he going to try to argue that Hubert hadn’t been obnoxious when they were younger? There was little point. There was no room for insincere pleasantries between them, they knew each other’s flaws too well. For some reason, all that thought did was remind Hubert that all the complements that passed between them had to have been genuine, too. He shifted his gaze at last, fixing his eyes on a snow-laden in the garden outside the dining hall. Ferdinand had been right. He should have left his feelings in letter form.

“Maybe this was the only way it could have been, then,” Ferdinand said.

Hubert looked at him again, but his comment remained inscrutable.

“Our… us,” he said. The faint blush on his cheeks clashed horribly with his hair. Hubert could have spent all day staring at it. “Maybe this really is the only way we could have ended up friends. The only way we could have come to like each other was by changing, and the only way we could change was by listening to each other. And the only way we ever got over ourselves enough to listen was by growing up.” His eyes flickered down, a small frown beginning to fold his brow. “Seeing things that put our little arguments into perspective.”

“Growing up, perhaps,” said Hubert, “but going to war? I refuse to believe that is a necessary part of maturing.”

Ferdinand looked up, his frown giving way to a smile. It was fascinating, Hubert found, the way he could brighten so intensely with such little movement. It wasn’t even as if he was grinning. He was just smiling, that same gentle smile he always seemed to be wearing, and looking at Hubert with those big, listening eyes. Ferdinand had the kind of face you could follow anywhere. Not only because it inspired confidence, but because it had a way of making wherever you ended up seem like the place you had been looking for all along.

Hubert had to close his eyes. No one had prepared him for faces like that.

“What do you think we would look like,” Ferdinand was saying, “if we hadn’t gone to war? If we had somehow been born into the world Edelgard is trying to build, where nobility was decided by character, not birth. Would we have still ended up friends?”

Hubert opened his eyes.

“I’ve never thought about that.” For some reason, his response made Ferdinand fidget with the trim of his sleeves. “But I suppose we most likely wouldn’t even know each other.”

“What?” Ferdinand jolted. Hubert hadn’t seen him look so aghast in ages. He didn’t quite know what to make of that. “Why wouldn’t we be Edelgard’s advisors, the same as now?”

“Well, doesn’t your motivation to be the ideal Prime Minister come from the examples of House Aegir’s past?” asked Hubert. It was absurd, when they were students, Ferdinand had spoken of nothing but his admiration for his family, and yet Hubert still found himself wondering if he had somehow gotten his beliefs all wrong. “If you were born into a world without recognition through family, then what would have drawn you to office? This office, specifically?”

Ferdinand was quiet, brow furrowed once again. It would have seemed kind of silly to see him focusing so hard on such an abstract question, but he had always paid such close attention to Hubert’s thoughts, hadn’t he? Hubert couldn’t decide if that was reassuring or terrifying.

“I suppose I could ask the same of you.”

And now it was Hubert’s turn to be quiet.

The silence stretched out long enough to be filled with the chatter of winter birds and the gentle rush of water as Ferdinand poured himself another cup of tea. But Ferdinand’s gentle movements didn’t feel as if he were rushing Hubert, and neither did his steady gaze. It simply felt as if he were listening. Ferdinand was always listening, to Edelgard, to Byleth, to anyone who had anything to say. Hubert admired it. More often than not he felt old instincts come to the fore, sending him into snappy retorts and walking off from conversations he wasn’t ready for. Ferdinand had never let him do that. It had pissed him off for years and still had him rolling his eyes, but at the same time, he would be a completely different person if he’d just run away from everything that made him feel uncomfortable.

“Maybe it was a good thing, then, that things happened the way they did,” he said eventually.

“I was going to say the same thing.” Ferdinand turned his teacup in its saucer. “Because I have no idea how I would have lived a life unlike this one.” He looked up from beneath a wave of hair, only just meeting Hubert’s eyes. “Even if it was only different in little ways.”

Hubert was gripped with a sudden need to hide behind his own hair. He shouldn’t have cut so much off after leaving the academy. Ferdinand had the right of it with those flowing tresses. He had no idea how he managed it – Hubert hadn’t even been able to keep his chin length hair from going greasy, but here was Ferdinand with hair halfway down his back still shining golden soft.

He wanted to reach out, to touch it. That would be absurd, of course. Embarrassing. But he still wanted to. Despite his sudden shyness, Hubert forced himself to return his gaze to Ferdinand’s, and found himself being watched. There was no other way to describe it, Ferdinand seemed to be _reading_ him, his eyes darting back and forth ever so slightly, as if he was looking for something. As if he was trying to figure something out.

Hubert’s hand was moving. It was too late, it had been too late for quite some time, and he was sick of resisting the momentum. Who knew where it would send him, if he’d even survive the fall, but that was no longer his biggest fear. No, Hubert still feared rejection, but nowhere near as much as he feared spending the rest of his life in this tension, unable to break through to the truth of emotion, stuck halfway between anticipation and action, all build up and no release.

So he let his gloved right hand reach out and brush a loose strand of Ferdinand’s hair behind his ear.

Ferdinand stopped breathing, his mouth ever so slightly open. He looked like a statue, as if someone had sculpted the ideal man, with his gentle eyelashes and perfectly pursed lips. All the princes’ portraits lining the halls of the Imperial Palace couldn’t hold a candle to him. Those flat painted ghosts of the past had once seemed like such great monuments to the nobility of the Empire, back when he was a child, but Hubert knew now that there were many wonders beyond what he had been taught to think.

Ferdinand turned, leaning into the hand and letting his nose bump the base of Hubert’s thumb. Hubert couldn’t let himself blink. This was far too important, as world-quaking as Edelgard’s declaration of war, and somehow even more alien. Ferdinand lifted a hand of his own, fitting it over the back of Hubert’s and drawing it even closer to his cheek. It frightened him, the feel of Ferdinand’s skin through his gloves. The knowledge that this was an entire person – and one who had until so recently hated him – who not only willing to be touched by Hubert, but willing, wanting, to touch him in turn! It seemed unthinkable. All of Hubert’s instincts told him to return to the shadows where he belonged, but those particular instincts had never fared well in the face of the Duke Aegir.

Ferdinand kept his eyes locked with Hubert’s even as his lids drooped, drawing Hubert’s hand from his cheek and over to his mouth. The world was still as Hubert felt Ferdinand’s lips meet the untouched skin of his wrist.

It was a silly thing to notice, that the Ferdinand’s mouth was still wet from the tea he had been sipping earlier, but Hubert couldn’t help but latch onto it. That really was Ferdinand, the same Ferdinand who’d been chatting with him over their drinks, the same Ferdinand he’d bought that tea for while his head swam with unspeakable hopes, the same Ferdinand who’d challenged him every single step of the way, determined to make him into the best version of himself possible. It was that Ferdinand who was kissing him, so gentle and chaste on the veins of his wrist. Hubert couldn’t remember if anyone had ever touched him there before, deliberately. Certainly not like this. Not with such purpose and yet so careful, as if Hubert were something to be valued, to be cherished and held. As if Ferdinand thought of him the same way Hubert felt about Ferdinand.

He was dizzy, head empty of thoughts and heart too full for words. It took him a second to realise the rush of redoubled vertigo came from lurching to his feet and not from yet another wave of emotion. He must look like a fool, Hubert knew, to so awkwardly rise to his feet while insisting on keeping his hand pressed to Ferdinand’s cheek as if to stop him from flying away. But he didn’t care how he looked, what his actions might look like in abstract. He could see himself in Ferdinand’s eyes, so bright and open and so _full_, overflowing with emotions that Hubert still couldn’t bring himself to identify. A voice still whispered in the back of his mind, telling him he had gotten it all wrong, that he was somehow hurting Ferdinand like this, but it was powerless before the reality unfolding. The reality where Ferdinand rose to his feet too, hand still pressed to Hubert’s and fingers inching forward to curl around to Hubert’s palm. Almost as if he wanted to keep him there.

“Ferdinand.” His voice had returned, catching as it did. Hubert felt as if he hadn’t spoken in years.

Ferdinand hummed and Hubert could feel the vibrations against his hand. Were they standing closer than they had been before? He hoped they were. God, he hoped for so many things, and was only just now letting himself realise it. They were moving closer still, he knew for certain now, but there were no longer any steps between them, only the gap of personal space and the difference in their heights that Hubert had begun to find fascinating. But even this inherent distance seemed too much to bear. 

“Forgive me,” he murmured.

Ferdinand’s lips were soft, open, as if they had been waiting for him all this time. Hubert had imagined this before, though he wouldn’t let himself admit it, spent far too much of his time thinking about what it would feel like to have Ferdinand up against him, to be the one to still that constant nattering. But he’d never imagined it like this. Perhaps his ignorance was forgivable, considering he was hardly working with a wealth of experience. Hubert didn’t particularly care, though. Not in that moment, with Ferdinand finally in his arms, mouths meeting… He’d pictured passion. More often than not, anger, considering how easily they got on each other’s nerves. Not this. Not the slow fall into a tenderly shared space, their lips barely brushing as if scarce believing the other was there.

Ferdinand’s lips dragged over Hubert’s, drawing together and then pulling back, and the single instant that passed without them against his mouth was too much for Hubert to bear. He hadn’t anticipated this – he’d dreamt of the warmth and the strength, but he’d never imagined feeling Ferdinand’s jaw move underneath the hand on his cheek, the tickle of air as Ferdinand breathed out through his nose. There were so many details, the faint scratch of Ferdinand’s unshaved upper lip, fine ginger hairs invisible at a respectable distance, the frankly rather disgusting mix of tea and coffee on their tongues… It was all so sharp, so clear. This was truly happening. There was no way Hubert could let such a moment slip away from him.

He chased after Ferdinand’s withdrawing mouth, bumping their noses together. Such a childish action, but one that brought a smile to Ferdinand’s face. He could feel it against his own as their lips met again, this time not the feather-light dance but a bolder slide. Hubert seemed to fit perfectly between Ferdiand’s grin, utterly helpless as he played with his lower lip, biting and pulling with little laughs as if he were watching some kind of magic trick. All Hubert could do was sigh as his hands wandered on their own.

His free arm curved around Ferdinand’s waist, resting against the heavy brocade as if it had been tailored for his hold, while the hold on Ferdinand’s cheek curled around to the back of his head to hold him close. How was his hair so soft? It slipped between Hubert’s fingers like it was nothing at all, absolutely obscene compared to how horribly maintained Hubert’s own hair had been back when he was a student.

He twined it around his fingers, giving a little tug just to relish in the feeling of it, as strong and vibrant as the rest of Ferdinand. In response he felt Ferdinand’s lips slip from his own, his face dropping to hide at the junction of Hubert’s neck with a shaky little laugh. It was only without the well of sensation that was Ferdinand’s mouth that Hubert had enough presence of mind to realise that he was standing within an embrace of his own, Ferdiand’s arms wrapped nearly too tight around his torso, fingers like hungry claws in his back. He gave another little pull of Ferdinand’s hair and felt those fingers twitch, a burst of hot air at his throat as Ferdinand gasped.

Now it was Hubert’s turn to laugh, surprised and delighted as he held Ferdinand close. He would have called it a dream, but he’d never had a dream that lasted this long, that was filled with such light.

Ferdinand gives a little snort – a snort! From the noblest of nobles – right against his skin, and seems to enjoy the sensation, turning the grin into something a little bolder. A little scrape of the teeth at Hubert’s jugular and he jolts. If a simple press to his wrist was too much to handle, he has no idea how to even process where Ferdinand’s going. His memory is racing to pretend it never happened even as Hubert presses Ferdinand’s head closer to his neck, arcing up to expose more skin out of his collar. This does not, however, have exactly the desired effect.

Ferdinand grins, looking up from his spot near Hubert’s shoulder, his mouth decidedly _not_ on Hubert’s skin in an entirely unacceptable turn of events.

“For someone who can’t make eye contact while accepting a gift, you’re awfully comfortable getting handsy in a public dining hall,” Ferdinand said.

Hubert’s brow furrowed, and then seconds later flattened in horror. Oh God, they really were in the dining hall. Too late for lunch and too early for dinner, there wasn’t anyone around, but there could have been – anyone could have walked in and seen them. Anyone from the professor to random soldiers – soldiers! They were at war and he was fawning over a boy who bought him coffee! – to even Edelgard could have witnessed whatever had just passed between them. Edelgard… if she had seen them, Hubert would have no choice but to take a vow of silence. He’d say a walk into the monastery pond, but the empress still needed him, no matter how he might embarrass her.

“Hubert?”

Ferdinand had stepped back, leaving a suddenly cold space between them, though Hubert still had his arm circled around his back. Despite his realisation of where they were, he couldn’t bring himself to detach from Ferdinand.

“You look even paler than usual,” Ferdinand said with a little smile. “I didn’t mean to… make fun of you. Rest assured, I am quite happy with how things are progressing.”

The hand Hubert had tangled in his hair may have dropped somewhere in his surprise, but Ferdinand had no qualms reaching for it and drawing it back to his cheek. To think it had last been in that position only a few minutes ago, when the though of kissing Ferdinand was a distant dream. It feels almost silly, the word “kissing”, even though that’s exactly what they were doing. It feels like a word from someone else’s life story. Sure, some people ended up with tragic romances or torrid affairs while waging war, but those people weren’t Hubert von Vestra.

He blinked, met Ferdinand’s eyes, tender and expectant.

Perhaps Hubert von Vestra wasn’t the man he thought he was.

He returned home to those lips again, his turn to pull at Ferdinand’s, to feel the bite and bounce of a lower lip growing puffy under his care.

“I’m not the sort of man to have my way with someone out where everyone can see.” 

“But that’s-” Ferdinand panted with a smile “-that’s exactly what you’re doing.”

Hubert squeezed his eyes shut, feeling a blush begin to spread across his face. He could have sworn he wasn’t a blushing person. Or, at least, he wasn’t with other people. 

“Your fault,” he murmured, the words brushing up against Ferdinand’s mouth. “I was a lot of things before I knew you.”

Ferdinand took a startled breath in and Hubert paused, waiting for him to respond. But he didn’t. He just watched Hubert, looking at him as if for the first time.

“Still, I…” Hubert swallows. “Things could get awkward, if we stayed here.”

“Right,” said Ferdinand. “Yes, ah… yes.” He looked away for an instant. “Would you prefer we go up to my room?”

The same abrupt clarity that had come upon Hubert at the mention of the dining hall returned. The world, so easily banished by the mirage that was Ferdinand von Aegir, reappeared in its totality, carrying with it all the contexts and implications society had been building for millennia.

Ferdinand had invited him up to his room. After they had been kissing.

(That still seemed such a silly word)

He had to respond quickly, before things got strained between them, before Ferdinand got some stupid idea in his head and thought Hubert did not want this to continue.

(“This”… what was “this”? How far, exactly, was it going to go? How long could it even last, when-)

Hubert blinked, admonishing himself with that simple movement.

“Of course,” he said.

The walk up to Ferdinand’s room was like something out of a dream, and not in the hedonistic sense of their earlier fooling around. Hubert had walked from the dining hall to the second-floor dormitories thousands of times, but never had he been so aware of every step, of how he held his hands and the expression on his face. Everyone has to know what they’re doing. They don’t speak, don’t look at each other, and the only people they pass are soldiers and civilians he doesn’t recognise, but it had to be obvious to them, mustn’t it? It’s obvious to Hubert.

His heart thumped with every second, sweat staining his forehead. He hadn’t anticipated this. He hadn’t known what he anticipated, really, when he’d bought that tea. Perhaps he hadn’t been anticipating anything. He’d thought of Ferdinand, was always thinking of Ferdinand, and saw something he’d like. He’d bought it, just because he wanted to. And then he’d kissed Ferdinand, because he wanted to do that, too. This had been, without a doubt, the most spontaneous day of Hubert’s entire life.

Practically everything he’d done since the age of, what, six? It had all been pointing down one path, the path he shared with Edelgard toward an Empire free of corruption and greed. Ferdinand may have walked along them down that path, indeed he cared more about the morality of those in authority than anyone else Hubert knew, and yet… That was somehow the least attractive thing about him. Sure, that was how they met, and continuing to work with him was the site of growth and change and more frustration than Hubert had thought possible, but it was the moments outside work, sharing drinks and jokes and gossip and insults and, now, touches, that drew him to Ferdinand, that kept him at the fore of his mind. And he’d never really experienced something like that before. 

For the first time, he found himself wondering at the scenery that surrounded his path, beyond the stones beneath his feet.

They had made it upstairs without incident. But then Caspar was there, headed towards them with a training axe slung over his shoulders, and he’d seen them. He was going to say something, and Hubert wouldn’t know what to do when he did.

“Hey.”

“Hello, Caspar,” said Ferdinand with a smile. “Happy training.”

“Thanks Ferd!” Caspar called in reply, walking past them. “Already broken one axe tonight!”

Ferdinand gave one of his beautiful clear laughs and waved over his shoulder as Caspar headed to the stairs. Hubert blinked. And then, wondered why he was surprised. Why should Caspar suspect anything? He and Ferdinand had made this same journey a thousand times over, whether walking to their separate rooms or to hole up in one as they continued to bicker over minutiae well into the night. Why should this evening look any different?

Ferdinand closed the door to his room behind them, and the sudden privacy put Hubert on display. He could feel Ferdinand looking at him. It frightened him, if only because he enjoyed it as he never had before.

Hubert sat on the edge of the bed, because that seemed the thing to do. Ferdinand didn’t seem to have any objections, judging from how he immediately moved to kneel in his lap, knees bent against the bed and hands draped around his shoulders, facing Hubert as if his face was easy to look at. His face was so close. Hubert didn’t know why that was intimidating now, when he’d had his teeth sunk into Ferdinand’s lips not ten minutes before, but it was. Like looking at the sun.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so uncertain,” said Ferdinand, quietly.

Hubert’s hands came up from where they had rested awkwardly against the sheets to grip Ferdinand’s waist, the fear that he might run off suddenly blaring loud in his brain. Ferdinand smiled, one of the hands draped over his shoulder coming up to cup his neck. He stroked Hubert’s pulse point with his thumb, and a great crushing weight came down upon Hubert.

“Trust me, I do not enjoy feeling this way either.” It came out more earnest than he had intended.

Ferdinand’s face melted into concern, those ridiculous puppy dog eyes wandering over his face.

“The uncertainty, I meant,” said Hubert, “Not-”

“No, no, I understand,” said Ferdinand, and both his hands were holding his face now, leaning in and staring at him as if he was going to find some lynchpin that would release his expression from the tension that creased it.

“This is… new to me.”

Ferdinand smiled, his eyes still so big and tender, and leant in, resting his forehead against Hubert’s. For a moment they remained there, the tips of their noses touching and breathing slow, while more words formed and fought within Hubert.

“Not just the doing,” he found himself saying, “but the feeling. The wanting. I feel as if I have just learned to see in a new colour.”

One of his hands returns to Ferdinand’s hair. Now that he’s held it, there will be no going back to the world of imagination. No more wondering if it’s really as smooth as it looks – now he knows he can’t live without it. There’s nothing in the world like it, if only because it belongs to Ferdinand.

“And it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Ferdinand took a quick little breath. He blinked, but Hubert barely had time to register the movement before he was being kissed again. All of the strange tension that wound itself around him as they walked up from the dining hall disappeared in an instant, taking with it nearly everything else in Hubert’s mind. There was only Ferdinand, hot and earnest against him, pulling at his lips and pressing down hard into his lap, gripping his cheeks and pulling, pulling everywhere, always trying to draw Hubert closer. Insatiable, as though he could breathe Hubert instead of air. How could he resist such open desire?

Everything from awe to jealousy roiled within him as he gripped Ferdinand’s hips and met his kisses with a fury of his own. What would it be like to live a life so raw and transparent? To have the courage to bite down on Hubert’s lip hard enough to cause him to gasp, but also to be so confident in his own moans and pants of joy? This was the man who charged into the front lines of every battle, who openly questioned the Empress’ judgement, who used to design his own lesson plans and hand them to Professor Byleth back at the Officer’s Academy. And it had worked! It all worked, like he was some mad god of confidence, destined to always win.

Certainly, he had won Hubert.

The noise Ferdinand made when Hubert rolled him over onto the bed, crouched over him and went for the neck was something between a squeal and a genuine cry of surprise. He couldn’t imagine that many people had managed to get the jump on Ferdinand before. Indeed, he noticed with an appreciative sigh, Ferdinand was one hell of a sturdy soldier, thickly muscled not just in his arms but around his core and his chest and his thighs and everywhere else Hubert could get his hands on. He couldn’t tell who groaned when he squeezed Ferdinand’s upper thigh through those stupidly tight jodhpurs – more than likely it was both of them – all he could tell was that his decision to rest his head on above Ferdinand’s heavily beating heart was thrown off by Ferdinand’s hands coming to fumble with the front of his jacket.

“Brocade,” he said with a laugh as Hubert lifted off him to give him better access. “I do so love the look, but I can imagine the embroidery’s not exactly gentle up against your face.”

Out of everything that had happened that evening, it had to be Ferdiand’s concern for the feel of golden thread against Hubert’s cheek that got him blushing the deepest. And then it somehow worsened as he realised Ferdinand was really undressing in front of him. Under him. Despite the cold, neither of them were wearing their capes or pauldrons – at this stage in the war it was exhausting to get dressed at all, and they had only been running through intelligence reports before tea, after all. So when Ferdinand sat up and tossed his jacket to the side, he really was just down to his shirtsleeves and jodhpurs, cravat askew and already revealing the mark’s of Hubert’s eager mouth at his neck. Hubert could only sit there atop him, an unknown feeling creeping up to tingle at the sides of his face.

He could not remember a time he had been this terrified and excited at once. He felt like a teenager – or the way other people had been teenagers, at least. Going through puberty for Hubert had meant coming to terms with very different intimacies to this.

“Are you alright there, Hubert?” Ferdinand asked, eyes tender and palm coming to rest against Hubert’s face, a mirror of Hubert’s own determination to keep his hand against Ferdinand back in the dining hall. Had that really only been a few minutes ago?

“I…” Hubert closed his eyes. Looking at Ferdinand made his mind go blank. “I don’t know what to do,” he admitted, lips barely moving against the heel of Ferdinand’s palm.

And he could tell just by the shape of Ferdinand’s exhale that he was smiling as he came closer, wrapping his hand behind Hubert’s head and drawing him in to nip at his earun. When had he come to know Ferdinand so well? It was not something he remembered learning, but, then again, there was no clear turning point for the two of them. There had been the early days when they hated each other. Then the outbreak of the war, and the slow fall into teamwork. And now this, Ferdinand’s hand unbuttoning his jacket, snaking beneath it to rest on the shirt beneath, his breathing heavy in Hubert’s ear. Hubert had no idea what to do with his hands.

Ferdinand smoothed his jacket off his shoulders like he was stroking something, all earnest and slow, and it took Hubert a second to realise that it was deliberate, that it wasn’t Ferdinand showboating and doing something in the most ostentatious way possible. He just wanted to touch him.

Hubert had never pictured a future like this.

There were some things he had allowed himself to imagine, when he was alone with his thoughts and the inescapable vulnerability of the night had come over him, taking the reins to his mind and forcing him to accept that Ferdinand drew his eye with more than just his gaudy fashion sense. But he had never allowed himself – never been _able_ – to look forward to something like this. To touch and be touched… that was for other people. He was a shadow, by necessity untouchable, untouching except for moments he would rather not dwell on. He did not regret it. He had kept Edelgard safe that way, cleared the path for a future that would not hurt her or any children like her again. He did not regret it.

But he was starting to wonder if there was a way to turn it off, at least temporarily.

Hubert had no desire to leave his chosen path. He wanted to follow it, needed to, with an urgency and desperation born of every indignation he and his dearest friend had suffered. Edelgard. Just a child. She deserved so much better. As did Ferdinand. But Ferdinand, he ached for him, with sensations he could only describe as the same: urgency, and desperation. But they were different. They may have had that same intensity, that same itch, that _drive_, the things that kept him running when sleep was but a distant memory, but they aren’t the same at all. He wanted justice because he knows just how horrifying its absence can be. He wanted Ferdinand because…

Because he just did.

Ferdinand was argument enough on his own, a self-evident edifice of elegance, the noblest of fucking nobles and the most interesting thing in the world. Hubert could listen to him talk forever and only agree with half of what he said, just because the way his mind worked was so different to his own. Was that what art was supposed to be? Edelgard had talked about it, the evocation of emotion through the representation of only the surface of a deeper truth, or something. Hubert didn’t understand it. Just as he didn’t understand Ferdinand. As, he was coming to realise, he didn’t understand himself.

All he knew was that he wanted to keep going. He wanted something that would outlast the war, something to look forward to in the world to come. Something for himself, that had no reason to exist beyond sheer desire. Something he couldn’t explain – no, he could _explain_ it, one look at the godforsaken man was enough, this attraction was perhaps his sanest thought to date – but something that had no justification. Loving Ferdinand was not part of some great plan. It was just a part of him. 

Hubert leant in, nestled his face in the crook of Ferdinand’s neck, and began to unbutton his shirt.

“Your hands are shaking.” Ferdinand pulled back to look at him with those damned eyes, easier to read than a child’s first literacy exercises.

“I want to get this right.”

“Oh, Hubert.”

Somehow kissing him when his shirt was half open – too many buttons open to pass for public wear, but too many closed to look like he was getting undressed – was more scandalous than if it had been off entirely. Like something in progress, alluding to more to come.

But then Ferdinand was pulling back and Hubert found himself whining, _keening_, all desperate and pulling at Ferdinand’s lips in a desperation he’d never expected to feel.

“Your hands, they’re still shaking.” And one of Ferdinand’s hands moved to cover Hubert’s fingertips where they gripped at his hips. His lovely hips. His pelvic structure was just perfect, and Hubert wanted to mock himself for thinking such a thing. Who complemented a pelvis?

“I want you,” he said, and it burned. Like his whole body was on fire. Like his entire personality was merely fuel for the fire that was Ferdinand. “Like I have never wanted anything else.”

Ferdinand rested their foreheads together, but did not go in for a kiss, the way Hubert so desperately needed. How could he be so composed like this, in the humidity of the room, with the momentum of everything they had ever said pushing them down toward the inevitable?

And then Hubert heard his breathing, how ragged it was, as if he had just run the length of the monastery. The sound was merely more fuel to the fire. Hubert needed to hear it again and again, to see just how broken it could get, what kind of gasps and cries and desperate groans he could tear from those lips. To hear what kind of noises would be wrought from his own in return. And maybe that thought was a little much, as Hubert found himself blanking, slipping a little against Ferdinand.

“Not yet.”

Hubert blinked. He wasn’t sure if his mind was still addled, or if he’d misheard.

“What?”

“I, ah… Maybe let’s not go further today.” 

Hubert stared at him, but he couldn’t quite focus on his face. A sensation like an ice-cube down the back of his shirt was starting to crawl over him.

“I thought you… wanted-”

“No, I do, I do, God do I…” Ferdinand brushed sweat soaked hair out of his face, the flush of his skin making his freckles seem to run together. “But not yet. I know this is all new for you. I want you to enjoy it, step by step. If we rushed into things too quickly, I’m afraid I would feel like I was taking advantage of you.”

Hubert scoffed. “I’d like to see you try.”

“Would you?”

Hubert had not been prepared for how Ferdinand’s voice would sound that low. His vision well and truly blacked out for a second.

“See? Look at you. White as a sheet.”

“That was not a negative reaction.” Hubert’s eyes were now focused intently on the bedspread.

A delighted burst of laughter fell from Ferdinand’s lips, and suddenly he was back nestled against Hubert’s chest, where he belonged.

“Perhaps when we’re better acquainted,” he said, dancing his fingertips across Hubert’s shirt.

“How much better acquainted can you expect us to get?” asked Hubert. “I know your opinions on everything from blue cheese to the taxation of out of season fruit grown in greenhouses. I know your _horse’s birthday_.”

Ferdinand laughed again. It reminded Hubert of so many nonsensical things, like a waterfall of champagne or a xylophone made of ice. He hungered for it.

“Well… I was rather enamoured with how things were progressing so far,” Ferdinand said, giving Hubert a squeeze somewhere completely random, on his side, somewhere between his pec and his underarm. “Perhaps we could continue down that trail..."

“What? Just stay-” _Go on, say the stupid word, it’s been happening all evening you can say what it’s called_ “-kissing?”

“…Yes?” Ferdinand ducked his head. “You seemed to be rather enjoying it. Or, at least, I thought you were.”

Hubert hadn’t realised that was an option. It seemed too good to be true, in a way. Needlessly hedonistic, even moreso than sex itself, which at least seemed to have a definite endpoint. To lie there and just… enjoy Ferdinand, it seemed like some kind of luxury. The sort of thing that filled daydreams, not reality.

“I was,” Hubert said, almost to himself. “I really was.”

Ferdinand chuckled, turning to look up at Hubert through so many strands of orange hair. But look was all he did, just waiting with that ever-enticing smile. Right. This was something Hubert had to learn how to do. He’d done it before, hadn’t he? Not so long ago at all, he’d heard his own heart beating, felt the flow and brought Ferdinand to his lips. He could do it again. Again and again and again.

Ferdinand’s smile grew even wider as Hubert cupped his face in both hands and the two fell together, their kisses shallower than the needy grappling of before. Yes, Hubert could do this. These were feelings he could act on, despite how alien they may have seemed at first. They were his. His to come to know and share.

“I…” he started, but tripped over his own tongue, and nearly Ferdinand’s too.

“Yes?” said Ferdinand, still with that ridiculous smile, that gentle look that made all the world seem so bright and open like a flower field in Blue Sea Moon.

“Oh, forget it, I think you know it already.”

Hubert could feel Ferdinand’s laugh ripple through his body, setting his fingertips alight with each shake, sending his blood rushing to everywhere he touched, a strange kind of sleepiness coming over him. A peace, even. Reassurance that there was a future to come, and he knew a little of what it would hold. He could put it all into words at some later date, when he and Ferdinand were “better acquainted”, as it were. When the war was over, maybe. Though that encompassed a massive expanse of time. Yes, Hubert realised as Ferdinand undid the first few buttons of his shirt, there were a great many things ahead of him, and a great deal of time for them to happen in.

He had come to know death better than his own family. Now, perhaps, it was time to find out what life felt like.

**Author's Note:**

> I literally just started writing something like "oh what would their post-A+ tea have looked like" and then the damn thing went and exploded into an emotional horny mess. Anyway I hope you enjoyed, I always appreciate constructive criticism if you have any thoughts on my writing. I'm @commanderfreddy on both twitter and tumblr if you wanna follow me for more never shutting up about these two.


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